


Five Letters A Lonely Soldier Wrote And One He Actually Sent

by Arwen88



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: 5+1 Things, Epistolary, Falling In Love, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, lavender marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23157835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arwen88/pseuds/Arwen88
Summary: Lewis has been away from home for a while, and the more time passes, the more he wonders if he should actually write a letter to his wife. At least, writing things down gives him a little comfort.
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Katherine Nixon, Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33
Collections: Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme





	Five Letters A Lonely Soldier Wrote And One He Actually Sent

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Cowt10, "epistolary form"; and the LLSS meme, prompt "Kathy Nixon, The only letter she gets from her husband."
> 
> Thanks to mucca for betareading this!

**1)**

My dear Kathy,

I know it's been months since you last heard of me, and more than once since I left home and you behind to enter the military, I've wondered if I should've taken the time to write to you.

Honestly, I'm not really sure if I'm cut out for this life. Of all things, I'm pretty sure I'm not made for this military police stuff. Basic training wasn't bad, and I know I'll have it easier than others because of my schooling, so maybe I'll end up being an NCO or maybe I'll try for OCS. I think that might actually be the better path for me. Even if I’m not really sure it would be a good idea to put me in charge of anyone.

And since I won't even actually send you this, I might as well admit I just hope I'll manage to do something for myself that it doesn't depend on my parents' money. Something I could look back on and not feel ashamed of like I do about so many of my choices up until now.

**2)**

My dear Kathy,

I wonder if I should actually write to you. But it does feel pointless, what with knowing you're probably not really waiting for me back at home, and with the two of us never having more than a friendship. I do feel like I need a real friend by my side right now, but somebody that could actually understand me and what I'm going through here, more than someone who could be sorry for me but have no idea about what I’m living through. What we learn, what we live through in camp, in the barracks.

I wonder if I'm gonna go to war without being more than a bag of money for anybody who gets to know me. I'm afraid you're included in those numbers, since you're my wife just because you needed to get out of your house and I needed my father to stop wondering about my tastes. And you're gonna inherit my money if I die, so, yes, bet if I ever write you you'll be writing back so many pleasantries. And I want more than that.

God I want somebody to want me, to remember me, to make me forget everything for a minute, to just see me. And not hate me, like I sometimes do when I see myself in the mirror.

I'm probably doing you a disservice by numbering you with the opportunistic folks that've surrounded me all my life. We were real friends back at home, that was true at least. But it wasn't the kind of friendship I keep wanting, the one I need. You’re not the kind of person that could take my mind off everything, push me into being something better than the man I see in myself.

Let’s be honest, though, I'll probably just end up fucking my way from one place to another, all the way to the front line and back.

**3)**

My dear Kathy

You'd be probably surprised to know that I did apply for OCS in the end. Pretty stupid probably for a man who doesn't really want to have any responsibilities on his shoulders. Maybe they'll get me ready for it. I hope so. At least I'll have more control over my destiny than I'd have staying here. God I do hope I didn't fuck everything up with this one decision.

**4)**

My dear Kathy

My God, you would never believe the kind of amazing person I managed to find for myself. Not that he's truly for me, but we're friends, and we keep talking, and he sees me as me, and he calls me Nix and doesn't care a bit about dad or about me buying him a drink or anything.

He doesn't even drink, can you believe it? And I spend all my free time with him. God, I'm falling hard, and I just want him to keep looking at me like he does. You'd never believe what I'm doing to just keep him around. I'm studying like I never did in college, for once. Cause I found out I like being good at this, I like people treating me like any other cadet, and I also like how proud he looks when I get good grades. I'm kinda surprising myself too. Oh, and I'm not being a sarcastic piece of shit twenty four seven either. Maybe I'll go back to that once I'm sure he won't drop me like a hot potato. Ha ha.

But Jesus I want him. I want him all day and night. I wonder if I'd stop wanting him so badly if I could actually have him.

Bet I wouldn’t. Bet I'd want more and more until I was drunk with him and not my Vat.

Thinking of which, maybe one day I will actually write you, or send you a telegram, ask you to send me some Vat. I'm starting to think that I'll need to store some in preparation for whenever I'm sent to God knows where. What if they don't have it on the other side of the world? Stupid fucking war. What does a man have to do to just have sex with the one he wants, and some good fucking whiskey to wash it all down?

**5)**

My dear Kathy,

Holy shit. I actually entered the paratroopers. They accepted me, can you believe it? And now I'm training with them. And I want to fucking set the Lieutenant ordering us around on fire. Can't believe they put such an incompetent bastard at the head of a whole fucking company. No, thinking back on it, I can actually believe it.

Trust them to choose the biggest piece of shit. I guess he's at least uniting us all under the desire to fucking end him.

He makes life unbearable. More than it already is. And it's plenty unbearable already, what with marches night and day, this freaking weather and the fact that I still don't know if I'm just a friend or not for that one person I keep lusting after.

I mean if it was only lust I would have got it out of my system fucking around, but I actually stopped fucking around since meeting him. Celibacy is horrible. I'm horny half of the time. Mostly when he gives me orders. Or I see his legs. God he has beautiful legs. And beautiful arms. I'd let him pin me down on the fucking training ground just to have him press down on me.

Did I mention he has a mouth to die for? What I wouldn't pay to have that mouth on me. But when he smiles at something I've said, the tiniest bit of a curl, I'm so fucking pleased with myself I sometimes get depressingly hard just because of that.

Wonder if he'll ever notice how I can’t take my eyes off him, how much I care about him beyond wanting him naked and writhing under me.

I want, want, want. I feel like I'm full of wishes that'll probably never be realized, but God at least I've got what I asked for, I guess. I should be more careful what I wish for.

I wish I could actually send you this. Let you know what's happened to me since we last saw each other. But I'm pretty sure it's better that I set this letter on fire just like I did to the other letters I wrote and never sent to you. Pretty sure the censors would have a field day if they were to open a letter such as this. Not to mention Sobel maybe actually smiling for once. Can't allow that.

Maybe I'll truly write you at some point. Maybe after we've gone to war. Maybe if I manage to make something of myself. Maybe if I hear that you've got a lover for yourself like I always knew you one day would. Wonder how long are we gonna keep this up before one or the other asks for a divorce. Guess if I die you won't need to though.

We'll see, like my friend keep saying.

**+1**

My dear Kathy,

How long has it been since we last saw each other? It feels like ages have gone by.

I thought many times about writing to you, but the truth is that what I need to tell you is what I feared you wouldn’t understand or that would upset you.

I’m no longer the man that left Nixon, New Jersey, years ago. Training at OCS started changing that and what that didn’t manage to get under my skin, the war did the rest.

I saw and lived through things that I would have never imagined in my darkest nightmares.

Only now I recognize how naive I was when, as a young man, I thought that all I wanted day after day was a stiff drink and a nice companion and to show my father I wasn’t the man he wanted me to be.

I think I still want those things to be perfectly honest, but my vision of the world has changed drastically since I witnessed uncountable deaths and miseries, since I lost so many of the men I'd grown to care about, and saw what others can do to their fellow men.

And for what? For power and money.

No one of the soldiers fighting us will get the power and money the higher ups are angling for in their country, and yet here they are, killing people, destroying everything, breaking lives so young that they had all their lives ahead.

I long for the day this will be over; I long for the day I will stop thinking about the cold of Bastogne, about the screaming of men dying, the smell of blood and decay in my nose, the constant fear that you learn to live with because you know you can’t do anything but stay where you are and do your best to help your guys.

I now recognize some choices I made before leaving home were poor ones, and I wonder how my life would have changed if things had gone a different way.

I never wrote you about this because I honestly figured I was gonna die here, on the front lines if not shot down on the plane on my way here. So I guess I always thought there wasn’t too much reason to tell you I’ve been thinking more and more that we need to end our marriage.

My Kathy, I met someone. In the midst of all my fears and insecurities and the horrors I witnessed, I met someone I can say I fell in love with.

It’s the kind of stuff I used to read in books and think it couldn’t be real, not with the all encompassing force that can drive someone to be better, to wish to be more, not even to be loved back, but just to be a better version of himself, or maybe it’s truly to be more appealing to the person one loves.

I probably started falling the moment we met, and our friendship has meant the world to me, it's what has driven me through the training and through my doubts. Because someone likes me so much, I figured there must've been something decent in me after all. That I was going in the right direction.

But then I found my feelings were returned, and what an amazing, wonderful moment that was. I felt truly happy for the first time in my life, my heart so full of joy, it felt about to burst.

I feel seen, Kathy. I'm seen for who I really am, for who I am under my jokes and my sarcasm, and the money and my vices. I'm loved even if I'm flawed. I'm not asked to change who I am, and somehow in another's eyes I'm the most amazing person in the whole world.

My beloved knows that what we have can't be compared to the friendship that is between you and me, Kathy, and yet I can't help but notice how uncomfortable knowing I'm married to you still makes it all.

I know you don't hold me nearly so dear, Kathy, but I can't help but hope that you’ll still love me enough to be able to let go of the marriage that still binds us together.

I wish I could be free to be with the one I love as I dream. I hope I'll live to see the end of this war and to go back home side by side.

I don't know what the future holds for us, for all of us, but if I could be next to my love for even just one day more, I'll consider it a life well spent.

My best wishes for you and your life, Kathy, my - hopefully - ex wife to be.

Love, Lew


End file.
